Cam Cole: Canadian swim coaches hoping team will 'walk pretty tall'

LONDON - Own The Podium, as a motto, was one thing at the Winter Olympics, where Canada had a semi-realistic chance to achieve the goal.Predictions about the Summer Games are a little more modest.So when a reporter archly tried to draw Pierre Lafontaine into a prognostication of his athletes' medal prospects, the head coach of Canada's swim team grinned broadly.“It's a nice way to put the question,” Lafontaine said, at a Thurday morning training session in the Olympic Aquatics Centre. “I could tell you a couple of things. I don't have a crystal ball, but the kids that are going to be in our lanes are going to walk pretty tall - they're going to feel they belong in that pool, they're not going to get intimidated by much.“That's a bit Of a change from a few years back. Even the young kids feel it. They're not all going, 'Wow, look, it's [Michael] Phelps!' Nobody's getting autographs.”Lafontaine, whose energy button is permanently stuck in the “on” position, said the first item on his team's to-do list is personal bests.“If we're anything above 50 per cent [PBs], we're bloody good, because most countries are in the 20-30 per cent [range], because of stress, because you don't control the village, transportation, you line up for food, buses ... I think people that are not necessarily focussed will get rattled by things they don't need to.“There are constraints here that don't happen anywhere else, which is why I think if you're Olympic champion, you're the greatest ever.”He thinks there is enough veteran leadership on the team, from the likes of Brent Hayden and Ryan Cochrane, to get the message through to the younger swimmers that they're here to do a job.“Ryan and Brent are not rah-rah leaders that way, but they are leaders in teaching that we're here to do business, and the young kids are just embarking on that game,” Lafontaine said.“Yesterday, I was really proud that Brent was at the [Canadian team] flag-raising,” Lafontaine said of the 28-year-old sprinter from Mission, B.C. “I mean, he's been to three Olympic Games, he easily could have brushed it off, but that was neat for me.”Cochrane, Canada's lone medal winner in the Beijing pool at age 19, with a bronze in the 1,500 metres, competes on the first day of the meet, Saturday, though not in his specialty. But his coach, Lafontaine's assistant Randy Bennett of Victoria, said it would be a mistake to write him off in the 400 metres.“He's done a great job this year, he's a proven competitor, he was fifth last year [at the world championships], turned third at 200 [metres], and everything's showing that he's better than he was last year, so that's the expectation,” Bennett said.“I think that every time he comes back he's a little bit better, so it's turns, some of the stroke-making, his upper-body strength ... if you look at him you'll see that he looks a little bit thicker, stronger this year and that's one of the things we thought, was that he was a little bit too light last year.”

So in between the 400 metres and the 1,500, which is on the eighth and final day of the meet, Cochrane will move out of the athletes' village into a hotel, where he can work with a nutritionist to keep his weight up between races. “You have to force yourself to eat more than you may be comfortable doing, but he just gets light - I remember in Beijing he was very light and we kind of worried about it. This is the best he has held it through the final preparations; he looks way stronger and more physical,” Bennett said.The special treatment may cost a few dollars, but dollars have not been as pressing an issue in the wake of Canadian success in Vancouver.“I think Own The Podium has been a great addition to the culture of thinking excellence. I think it was always there, but the mandate now - they think it, they talk it - and it's become an accepted discussion now: why didn't you win? Let's analyze what went wrong," Lafontaine said.“In the end, if the sports system is better and the culture is better, it will be better for swimming, too.” As for what's in it for the taxpayers, Lafontaine's voice rose a few decibels:“I think investing in our kids has to be the greatest thing our country can ever do,” he said. “Whether it's for sports, music, education ... there's no reason we shouldn't support passion, and help facilitate world success. I think a country that doesn't invest in its youth and excellence is a country that's willing to die.”ccole@vancouversun.com

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